From The Frontier

“The Commoner’s progressivism,” says Mr. Glad, “was founded not on political contrivances or on economic panaceas; it was founded on the faith that was his heritage as a son of the Middle Border. His appeal to the hearts of his countrymen, his doctrine of love, his emphasis on sacrifice as the measure of greatness, his belief in majority rule, his devotion to the common man, his conception of good and evil, his revivalistic approach to social and economic problems, his confidence in God’s purpose as he understood it—all these are traceable to a mentality that found the values of an agrarian environment completely satisfying.”

Considering everything that has been happening in the last quarter century, that mentality does not look quite as ridiculous as it may have seemed a decade or two ago.